


Where One's Soul Wants To Wander

by SecondStarfall (beantiger)



Series: The Second Starfall Stories [18]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Clocks, Communication, Coping, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Fantasy, Fear, Flash Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kissing, Lesbian Character, Medieval, Mental Health Issues, Microfic, Nightmares, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Soldiers, True Love, War, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22239208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantiger/pseuds/SecondStarfall
Summary: "Hm. Well, I don't want to wander, it's true. You are here," Marlesse said."I am here. And so are you. With a wedding to plan."***When the chief guard has nightmares, her love the botanist knows how to comfort her.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Series: The Second Starfall Stories [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582975
Kudos: 11





	Where One's Soul Wants To Wander

**Author's Note:**

> This is a version of the original Twitterfic, same title, posted over at my now-deactivated personal account in January 2020. It has been given fairly moderate edits for consistency with other stories and readability on AO3. ❤️ 
> 
> **SUGGESTED RE-READING:** ["A Certain Necklace of Jade,"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22059523) where Marlesse proposes to Val.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨

It took little to wake the chief guard, for she was once a soldier, and slept as half-tame cats do: ready to move at any provocation. And—like those cats, who cannot choose between the wild or a warm hand—she felt stuck, always, between the scramble of her conscious mind and the nightmares.

***

When Marlesse de la Mer began to spend nights with her lover, she dreamed, often, of soil: being buried alive, or tasked to bury her comrades alive for eternity, or Valériane asking for a burial, to which Marlesse, in every dream, acquiesced. Eventually, she told the botanist, and Valériane (rather needlessly) apologized, finding her lips in the early morning dark.

Valériane always smelled of earth—especially her hair. And who wouldn't bury themselves as deeply as possible in their beloved's hair?

***

The botanist began to wash with lavender soap, and all was well, for a while. Marlesse slept unevenly, but the warm and sweet-smelling presence curled under her chin made up for that.

Then the chief guard started to think before she fell asleep, and think a lot. 

It was that damned song the children in town refused to stop singing:

_"The dragon dreams of stars that fall,  
and the witch in the tower won't dream at all."_

Fall, fall. Her soldiers falling. Again. Again. 

The witch in the tower, her Valériane. One day, perhaps, Marlesse wouldn't see the signs—one day she might have to watch over Val's grave—

The dragon. His children. The queen's children. The farmer's children. If she failed to protect them— 

And there was that ticking, ticking—

Marlesse didn't know if she imagined it, or if some mad ancestor of the queen had buried clocks in the walls of the castle. Wouldn't that have been something?

But, if all was quiet, the castle ticked. Marlesse swore it did. She could not rest.

***

Her lover the botanist noticed the shadows under her eyes, and offered her valerian root.

"I can't," Marlesse said. "It would take me too long to wake in the morning. I need to be alert."

They sat together in the royal garden on their day off-duty. 

"Bah, I only take three or four hours to awaken. With very strong, black coffee," said Valériane. "Is there something else I can do for you, love?"

"What do you do—could you tell me—if you're comfortable with it—when you're overwhelmed? No one I know that spent any time in the military is keen on discussing it, which, all things considered..."

"I think we've already seen what I do when I'm overwhelmed." 

Fear clenched Marlesse's heart. She pulled her love closer.

"You can't ever temper it?" the guard mumbled, pressing her cheek against the botanist's ink-stained forehead.

"Not often. I suppose sometimes—I do this thing that Sandrine taught me." Valériane twirled her jade pendant—their marriage contract—around her fingers. "It's ridiculous, but: I tell myself—yell and howl at myself, really—to stay here, at the castle, in my body. To not go where my soul wants to wander."

"Hm. Well, I don't want to wander, it's true. You are here," Marlesse said.

"I am here indeed. And so are you. With a wedding to plan."

They kissed among the sunflowers.

"By the way, that ticking? There's a clock in the catacombs. Big one," Valériane said.

"I—excuse me?" 

"Yes. Huge. I can't hear it. Most can't. Some hear its chirping on and off. But Sandrine's littlest has already begun to complain about it. The old king was a strange man," Valériane said. "I'm certain it was some delegate's gift to him." 

"And it still ticks? By itself?"

"I suppose we could destroy it," Valériane said, grinning.

***

Of course, they didn't. Couldn't. Which, come to find out, was a good thing. But that is a story for another day.

What matters is that, when Marlesse's thoughts spin, she recalls all that has happened at the castle: holding the queen's daughters in her lap, for example. Greeting an honest-to-goodness dragon. Training a generation of watchmen and -women to find peace where they could. Walking arm-in-arm with her love, who was still alive, blissfully alive.

She remembers, and she can sleep for just a while, rooted in the present.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment or a kudos or whatever the heck if this tickled your fancy. There shall be more! ❤️ Also, please let me know what other characters, relationships, or places you'd like to hear about. I have lots of ideas, but I'd enjoy writing a few stories for y'all as well.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** To quote the [Second Starfall wiki...](https://youneedawiki.com/app/page/1eTLPfjSDKXOWAgJqZ9fc7cFh-CpJKigdqr0VPB5DH2g?p=1poOqxYIoKHsU29l2qZT16-eN7Emt4_5e)
> 
> _"Because war veterans in Althussant are common, and Althussian scholars often focus on topics of the mind, stigma against mental disorders or physical disabilities is rare."_
> 
> (Althussant being the kingdom where all these early stories take place.)
> 
> I didn't consciously make the decision to fold mental wellness into their culture, but it was apparent as early as the first SecStar story—recall that Marlesse instinctively knows that depression is a disease. In other stories, no one overtly tries to make Val feel too guilty for her suicide attempt. Althussant has plenty of issues in its society, as it's pseudo-feudalistic and insular, but I wanted _some_ things to be different. I'm sure for many of us, it's nice to read tales where folks take depression and PTSD seriously.


End file.
